Modern computing systems provide access to unprecedented amounts of data. A user may, for example, operate a Web-based search engine to search billions of Web pages and retrieve relevant data therefrom. An individual Web site may also provide a “search box” allowing a user to search its constituent Web pages, or may facilitate searching of other sources relevant to a specific topic (e.g., movie showtimes, restaurants, used cars, etc.). Enterprise or other proprietary computing systems may also allow authorized users to search considerable datasets.
The result returned by such searches tend to be cumbersome. A user may be overwhelmed by the number of results, as well by difficulties in meaningfully filtering the results to a manageable number. These difficulties may arise in determining appropriate filtering criteria, and in inputting and applying the filtering criteria. Of course, these difficulties are not limited to filtering search results retrieved from large data sets.
A user may filter search results by adding additional criteria to the original query (e.g., by appending an AND statement). In some examples, a user may filter a set of results by invoking a graphical filter control (e.g., a slider representing a spectrum of values of a particular characteristic of the results), operating a pointing device to “move” the graphical filter control to a desired value (e.g., Max/Min), and selecting a confirmation icon.
Improved systems to filter data are desired. Such systems may leverage graphical indicators and one or more input “gestures” to provide efficient data filtering.